Pochettino says Spurs poor finishing skills to blame for loss to West Brom

As per Mauricio Pochettino, it was the Spurs’ poor finishing skills that need to be blamed for their shock 1-0 defeat to West Brom recently at The Hawthorns.

Many people were expecting Tottenham to score an easy victory in this match and had heavily backed Spurs in the betting markets.

With World Cup round the corner, a great multitude of punters are getting into the mood for World Cup betting and are availing the best of the World Cup tips on the Internet. The increased betting interest has also had an impact on the EPL betting.

Wasted chances

While Harry Kane had the best chance to score for Spurs in the game, attempting a goal from close range, firing at Ben Foster during the first half, Christian Eriksen and Victor Vanyama also troubled the Albion goalkeeper attempting shots at the goal from a distance.

However, Spurs were made to pay heavily for failing to make a breakthrough when Jake Livermore scored the winning goal for the West Brom team in the 92^nd minute of the game. It proved to be the only shot on target for the West Brom squad.

A horrible day in the field for the Tottenham team was compounded by an injury to Jan Vertonghen, contender for the Player of the Year award. He was seen limping off the field shortly before the West Brom goal.

Pochettino’s statement

When enquired by the press if Spurs really should have won the match, Pochettino stated, “Absolutely but we missed chances to score. In football, you can dominate, have the option to score but then you have to be clinical and today was not good. Our finishing wasn’t good and we are very disappointed. Against a team like West Bromwich [Albion] it is always possible that can happen because they are very physical and work very hard and are good at set-pieces.”

Chelsea closing-in

The result reopened the race for the top 4 position, as Chelsea has moved up the league table, and is just 2 points behind the Spurs, after having defeated Liverpool 1-0 in a super Sunday match. Majority of Spurs’ fans believe that finishing above Chelsea on the table would a huge high for the Spurs!

Pochettino is of the opinion that Spurs still have the ability to secure a Champions league berth as they have couple of home games against Leicester and Newcastle in the tournament. He strongly believes that there would most likely make it to the top 4.

The Spurs coach further reasoned that the team didn’t concede many chances, as each one of them came through set pieces, which is normal in the game. He said they were well aware of their opponents’ abilities and emphasised that if a team wants to be among the top 4 in the league, and challenge the big players, it needs to score on a consistent basis and avoid a 0-0 situation at the last minute, as anything can happen at that time.